Episodios
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Renting in New Zealand today is more difficult than a decade ago, with fewer properties available, rents continuing to increase, and the quality of rental properties not much better, Shamubeel Eaqub says. However, the economist and co-author of the 2015 book Generation Rent, rethinking New Zealand's priorities, says it's not all bad news.
Speaking in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Eaqub says the "lived reality of renting" has got harder over the past decade, but the regulatory settings are slowly improving.
"We need to ensure there's sufficient renters' rights ... because in New Zealand renting is so insecure and is such a problematic thing for so many people."
One area giving Eaqub optimism is the rise of build to rent, where landlords must offer 10-year rental tenancy agreements.
"I've been a long time fan of institutional landlords rather than accidental landlords. When you are in the business of land lording, you want to have as little turnover as possible, whereas if you're an accidental landlord, you are much more interested in having quick turnover and being able to sell it off and all those other bits and pieces. The tenant is kind of incidental to the story and a bit of an annoyance, really."
Eaqub says build to rent offers two types of security; tenure security and financial security.
"Because more often than not [build to rent] will come with contracts that will have a known level of [rental] increase for the next, say three years, so you can plan your finances. Whereas in a normal tenancy you have only certainty for 12 months and then you don't know what will happen next."
Build to rent is adding new housing supply targeted for one particular use, which he says is unusual in NZ.
"If you look at what happens in New Zealand, or how it has generally happened in New Zealand in the past, it's the idea of filtering, right? You build houses which are for new homes and for rich people, and then the older homes that are secondhand, that kind of gets recycled into the rental market."
"So I'm very encouraged to see this new supply that's coming in, that's very much targeted towards renting specifically. Because if you think about the pressures that we see in terms of emergency housing, social housing and all those kinds of things, that's happening because people are falling out of the rental market, because the rental market is short supplied and is very expensive. And so the more we can do to get more supply directly and retained in the rental market, the better it is," Eaqub says.
He also talks about his disappointment at the fracturing of the Labour-National consensus on medium density residential standards (MDRS).
"[The consensus] showed me for the first time the grown-up-ness of the way that our politicians can respond to structural problems, that we can put aside our political differences and just do something because it's the right thing to do, not because you're on one side of the House or the other. But that grown up moment of politics lasted very, very briefly, and we threw it away at the first chance when the election campaign started," Eaqub says.
In the podcast Eaqub also talks about NIMBYS, the construction sector, what's driving rents, problems with local government, his views on rent controls, the accommodation supplement, emergency housing, what the rental market may be like for his kids' generation, and more.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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With economic growth no longer producing benefits seen in the past such as raising living standards for the middle class, and human activity having exceeded some planetary boundaries, it's time to embrace degrowth, argues Jennifer Wilkins.
Wilkins is a researcher and advocate on sustainability in business with a focus on degrowth. In a new episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, she discusses the degrowth movement.
"Degrowth is normally described or defined as an equitable downscaling of production and consumption. Other people add in other parts of that definition, which is about reorganising the market for a new role in provisioning. So I think about degrowth as being a transition. Starting from the economy that we have now, which is very much about trickle down wealth and extracting from nature, to a future economy which is more about universal wellbeing in an economy within ecology and nature. And degrowth is really the transition from one to the other," Wilkins says.
"So I don't think about it as being a very rapid change or a very smooth change. I think about it as being a hybrid of emergence and receding ideas, quite a lot of tension and a lot of mutation in the economy. So it's quite a complex thing, degrowth."
She traces degrowth's origins to the 1970s, and Romanian mathematician, statistician, economist and author of The Entropy Law, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, "the father of ecological economics."
The push for net zero greenhouse gas emissions is needed but not enough, Wilkins says. With a degrowth economy requiring more of a collective than individual approach, Wilkins says "the jury's out on the role of capitalism." And does advocating for a reduction in production and consumption mean people would be expected to accept a lower standard of living?
"I think degrowth is definitely looking to raise standards of living for the majority of people around the world. I think standards of living are actually decreasing at the moment. I think around the world, middle class lifestyles are decreasing in quality. And so there's this myth, if you like, that raising growth improves wellbeing. But the evidence shows that there's actually a bliss point. Economic growth improves wellbeing up to a certain GDP per capita, and beyond that, it either doesn't make a difference and/or eventually it begins to reduce wellbeing," says Wilkins.
"The bliss point is actually quite a lot lower than New Zealand's GDP per capita. So we have theoretically enough wealth already. We just need to redistribute it. I think people who are very well off will not see a reduction in their wellbeing or their living standards through a redistribution, but I think people who are less well off will see a great improvement in their wellbeing through a redistribution."
Wilkins believes degrowth will become public policy, saying politicians who want to run on a degrowth platform have lots of positive things they can say.
"It's about redefining what we see as value. I mean, at the moment we think about wealth as value and prosperity, but prosperity is really about things like having more leisure time, having a healthier natural environment around us, having more community health and more community cohesion, having more access to services and assets, and having an increase in our democratic participation. And those are all things that degrowth wishes to grow," Wilkins says.
"I think it [degrowth] will become public policy. I think parties will run on it as a platform. It's hard to say when that would happen, but I think in the not too distant future. And I think the thing is that growth as an idea is so embedded as a common sense that it never has to explain itself. And so there's a bit of an unfair playing field in terms of degrowth will have to explain itself to become credible. Whereas growth gets a free pass."
"Growth is not producing the effects that we have experienced in the past, like the raising the living standards of the middle class. That ship has sailed. We're in a different world now. There isn't room for growth to create those kinds of benefits anymore. We need to create benefits in a different way. So growth will fail to evidence itself as a wellbeing, a process for wellbeing in future. And there'll be a confluence of factors. There'll be, you know, this failure of neoliberalism, which I think we're already experiencing," says Wilkins.
There's more from Wilkins in the podcast itself, including what degrowth would mean for individuals, businesses and communities, and what it would mean for agriculture, manufacturing and tourism.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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For open banking to really grab people's attention the focus needs to be on the services it can enable, rather than the technology behind it, says Andrew Dentice.
In the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Dentice, a technology lawyer and partner at HudsonGavinMartin, discusses the data sharing that enables open banking, what open banking actually is, why progress towards it has been slow in New Zealand, what's going on with open banking overseas, the threat and opportunity of open banking for banks, the benefits of it for consumers, and more.
One of the points he makes is consumers need to be put at the heart of it.
"If you're talking about APIs [application programming interfaces] and bank account information, it's not exactly the most sexy conversation to be having," Dentice says. "We have to put the consumer front and centre, have a look at some of these really amazing use cases that are starting to come out, and get people excited about it. And then that drives the [banking] industry to do more as well."
"I think you've almost got to separate the open banking technology itself from the stuff that it enables," says Dentice.
"That technology itself is actually not that exciting as a consumer. APIs have been around for years. As a consumer, I don't really see that. What I see is the cool new app, the Sharesies, the Monzo, the Wise in market, that when I go and use it gives me a really fantastic, brand new experience."
"We're never going to get people excited with the underlying tech around open banking. We're going to get them excited around the use cases that it's driving. So it's kind of an enablement layer rather than new technology in itself," Dentice says.
Asked what the banking experience might look like for consumers in five to 10 years time if open banking really takes off in NZ, Dentice says better, more competitive, more interesting product offerings would be a great outcome.
"I would hope that there's a range of new, great, innovative New Zealand fintechs that are able to drive their business models off the back of this. I'd also hope that the great companies from overseas see New Zealand as a market that they want to enter. There's some larger [overseas] fintechs like Revolut and others coming into the market. I think if we have that open banking framework all up and running, then it makes New Zealand a much more likely place [where] the big players will come in and offer more competition."
He also thinks service from incumbent banks could be better and more competitive.
"I saw recently HSBC basically launched a competitor to Wise in that FX [foreign exchange] space. So there's the fintechs kind of coming in cutting [banks'] lunch, and then the banks' trying to cut the lunch back."
"And then I think digital first financial services means that people just have a better understanding of their money, their financial position. Financial literacy is really important. There's some great fintechs who are doing things with kids in that space, like SquareOne and Banqer."
"So there's a societal benefit to it, as well as a pure kind of competition and innovation benefit as well," Dentice says.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds says a re-elected Labour Government would have been willing to expand its planned public sector cuts to protect key programmes.
The tax lawyer turned MP spoke on Interest.co.nzâs Of Interest podcast about the Coalitionâs fiscal policy and her role in rebuilding the Labour Party after its election defeat.
Part of that project will be rehabilitating the partyâs economic credibility after presiding over a massive cost of living crisis.
Ipsosâ February issues poll showed inflation, or the cost of living, was the number one issue facing New Zealand voters and only 23% saw Labour as being best able to deal with it.
Only 22% thought it was the best party at âmanaging the economyâ down from 31% a year ago and well below the National Party which has climbed from 42% to 47%.
The parties which have formed the Coalition Government campaigned on bringing down spending and therefore inflation, as well as cutting taxes for some groups.
Edmonds agreed there was a need to consolidate spendingâwhich had got ahead of revenue during the past three yearsâbut tax cuts were a bad investment.
Labourâs fiscal plan asked for up to 2% reductions in public sector budgets, while the Coalition Government is asking for up to 7.5%.
She admits her party would have had to make further cuts, given new Treasury forecasts showing tax revenue falling below pre-election forecasts.
âIf we had to make more cuts, or look at different savings, in order to ensure that lunches in schools kept going ⊠we would have had to make those decisions,â she said.
âI wouldn't apologize for making those types of choices. But what I wouldn't have done is promised really unaffordable tax cutsâ.
Edmonds said the limited money available was better invested in infrastructure, schools, healthcare, public and private transport, and climate action.
Which tax?
Edmonds said she was out meeting with key sector leaders and listening to new ideas she can carry back to Labour's policy council.
Her role was to guide her colleagues through the process of developing a manifesto for 2026 and informing them about the costs and tradeoffs involved.
âIf I need to say no, Iâll say no. Iâm a mum of eight, I know how to say no,â she said.
âUltimately, if I believe that it's going to put Labour into a difficult fiscal position going into the next election, I will make those views very clearly knownâ.
Labour recently voted against a bill put forward by Te PÄti MÄori, which would have removed the GST from all food, on the basis that it was too expensive.
But the big policy question is about tax. Political opposition to taxes on capital has been the unslayable dragon of New Zealand politics.
Tax reform is back on the table but Edmonds wonât be drawn on exactly what kind.
She said it was necessary to first ask what the party was trying to achieve and then design a tax model that supported those outcomes.
The country will be facing some serious fiscal challenges by 2060 when superannuation could cost 10% of GDP and healthcare could absorb another 7%.
â2060 looks like ages away, but thatâs the next generation. Thatâs my kids. So, we need to ask, what is the society that we want to leave this generation and how does tax help us get there?â
The Treasury and the International Monetary Fund have both made recommendations about possible reforms, but Labour would be starting from scratch based on its long-term vision for New Zealand.
Edmonds said political parties donât win elections based on tax policy, anyway.
âYou win on committing to a better health system, better education, making sure the vulnerable are supported, and that our businesses are able to grow,â she said.
You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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The departing Chief Executive of the Insurance Council of New Zealand says if Wellington is hit with an earthquake on a similar scale to the Canterbury quakes, it would âraise some questionsâ on whether NZ insurers would be able to continue to purchase reinsurance at an affordable cost.
âI think reinsurers would still be there. But the ability to purchase reinsurance at a good rate and the degree of capacity that would be available, particularly for property in Wellington, could be really challenging,â he says in a new episode of interest.co.nzâs Of Interest podcast.
âEnsuring how we manage that risk is really critical because we're very dependent on offshore capital and reinsurance to help support our insurance programs in New Zealand.â
The Insurance Council says to date, private insurers have incurred over $21 billion in expenses due to the Canterbury Earthquakes.
Toka TĆ« Ake EQC has contributed an additional $10 billion, resulting in a total insured cost surpassing $31 billion for the event.
The Insurance Council estimates the overall economic losses for the entire sequence are estimated to exceed $40 billion.
This week marks the conclusion of Grafton's nearly 12-year tenure as CEO of the Insurance Council and he reflected on his time in the role on the podcast.
He says lessons were learnt from the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury Earthquakes, which were then applied to responses to the KaikĆura earthquake in 2016 and the Auckland floods and Cyclone Gabrielle last year as well.
âWhen that [KaikĆura] earthquake struck, which was just a little bit after midnight, I think, on the 14th November, a lot of people were thrown out of bed almost by the earthquake in Wellington. And after the shaking stopped, I rang my counterpart at EQC Ian Simpson [EQCâs Chief Executive at the time] and said, âweâve got to do better than Canterbury and can we meet in a few hours and work out where we go from hereâ,â he says.
âSo, within four weeks, we had the foundations of an agreement which enabled insurers to manage and settle claims on behalf of EQC. And that meant that for the customer, there was one point of accountability and responsibility for their claims, their insurer. And so it didn't matter whether it was an EQC claim or an insurer claim, they didn't get bounced around between the two.â
âSo from that, we then developed a more formal and longer lasting agreement with EQC to be their agents. And I think also the experience of those events from Canterbury through to KaikĆura, meant that when the Auckland anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle came along, we were well seasoned in dealing with these kinds of situations.â
Kris Faafoi will be the Insurance Councilâs new Chief Executive from next week. Faafoi held a number of portfolios during the Sixth Labour Government before he quit politics in 2022, including Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Broadcasting and Media, Immigration and Civil Defence.
You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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In five years' time we would see things we can't imagine today if the Government adopts the Commerce Commission's recommendations to boost competition for personal banking services, Commission Chairman John Small says.
Speaking about the Commission's draft report from its banking market study in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Small says he'll be interested to see what sort of response the Commission gets from the big four banks, ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac, who it says are an oligopoly who don't face strong competition.
"We haven't accused them of doing anything nefarious. They're responding to the incentives that are in front of them. And we think that they've settled into a particular pattern of conduct that we think should be disrupted. But we don't blame them for that," Small says.
"I'll be really interested to see what they do have to say about it."
The Commission makes 16 recommendations in its draft report, and says they should be considered as a whole. He's optimistic about what the market for personal banking services could look like five years from now if the Government was to adopt them all.
"We would see things that we just can't imagine today. So if open banking is operational within a couple of years, if Kiwibank has already been disruptive, then I think we've set the industry up for a really healthy, competitive future that will be greatly beneficial to New Zealanders throughout their economy. And that [interest] rates will be sharper, and the range of services will be much wider and the choice between providers, trusted providers, will be much wider as well. So I would see it as being really positive five years from now," says Small.
In the podcast Small also discloses which three of the Commission's 16 recommendations he believes are most important. With the Commission recommending the Reserve Bank review its bank regulatory capital settings, he also discusses dialogue with the Reserve Bank about this, and wanting them to "think really carefully about the competitive aspects of their decisions."
He also talks about why the big four banks don't face strong competition, what could be done to make Kiwibank a disruptive competitor, how the banking industry hasn't disrupted itself via open banking, customers moving between banks, the competitive landscape for home loans versus deposits, his take on the idea of a windfall profits tax on banks, and what a parliamentary select committee bank inquiry could probe.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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With a United States presidential election looming in November, Patrick Watson, Senior Economic Analyst at Mauldin Economics, says it's difficult to say what the key economic battleground will be because many voters are "living in their own realities."
Speaking in a new episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Watson says there's not a great deal of agreement on whether the US economy is even in good or bad shape.
"If you ask Democrats, they mostly say the economy is fantastic. If you ask Republicans, they say the economy is terrible. I think it's somewhere in between. I think that's what the data actually shows," Watson says.
The election is expected to be a rematch between incumbent Democrat Joe Biden, and his Republican predecessor Donald Trump.
"On the Trump side, they have not really announced a great deal of specific policy. So that's kind of a mystery. We know what the Biden administration has done and says they will do. People can like it or not like it, but they at least know. So what we do know from the Republican Trump side is he wants to further restrict immigration. He will probably resume the various trade war and tariff measures that he was doing last time and possibly more aggressively," Watson says.
"But again, the difficulty is people aren't operating from reality. People are operating from their own predispositions, what they think is happening. So that makes it hard to predict."
Asked whether the average American is feeling as if they're doing well at the moment, Watson says this is a really interesting question.
"The survey data that's out there is really confusing, because when they ask people, how is your situation, how are you doing financially in your own family and household? Most people, pretty solid majorities, over 60% are saying, 'I'm great, I'm in a good spot.' But then if you ask them how do you think the economy is doing overall for everyone else, they become very bearish. They think it's terrible. So it's hard to see how both of those are true at the same time," says Watson.
In the podcast Watson also talks about this week's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) monetary policy review and the outlook for interest rate cuts, the US inflation picture including housing's role in its stickiness, what's going on in US share markets, regional economic performance in the US, challenges in the US labour market, and the influence of the Inflation Reduction Act.
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The "cheer squad" make it hard to have a proper debate on housing, especially when looking to address the question of what we want from the housing market from a public policy perspective.
So says Cameron Murray, Chief Economist at Fresh Economic Thinking, a new Australian think-tank. In the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcastMurray talks about housing and his new book The Great Housing Hijack. He describes the housing markets and attitudes to housing in Australia and New Zealand as "culturally very similar in terms of the attitude to housing."
Murray, who has been a real estate agent, property investor and worked for FKP Property Group, says his book title essentially describes the state of the public debate in housing.
"There are so many vested interests, so many different groups and hobby horses that have lobbied, professionally or not for many decades, that it is very hard to have a straight conversation about housing in a public forum. So that is the housing hijack," he says.
"The housing hijack is all about what I call in the book the cheer squad, these noisy people on the sideline distracting us from the game of housing and, rather than understanding the plays and the strategy of the game, we're getting distracted by the noise of the cheer squad."
In the podcast Murray talks about why we should acknowledge the post-World War II to mid-1970s period was an unusual golden age in housing, what he sees as the five housing market equilibria, why he doesn't believe simply freeing up land and loosening zoning rules to enable housing supply is the silver bullet, KiwiBuild and the politics of housing.
Murray proposes HouseMate, a parallel public homeownership system alongside purchase and rental in the private property market. It would offer non-property owner citizens the option to buy a home from a public provider at a cheap price.
"The reason to propose this is simply that I couldn't find any examples anywhere in history or anywhere in the world where we'd sold housing for that group, that 10% or 15% of people who are renters, who are getting squeezed every time the market adjusts and people's incomes are rising. I couldn't find any examples where those people's housing had been improved without a public option of some sort. Whether that's regulated rental, like Vienna, where there's massive council housing and it's somewhat universal, anyone can access it. Or whether it's public housing home ownership, which is more of a Singapore type approach. Europeans have long term rental, but I think culturally, the Australians and the Kiwis would go for a home ownership type approach," he says.
"At the end of the day, we have to accept the economics that there is a subsidy exactly equal to the difference between the market price and what you get people into that home at. There is no sneaking around this economically."
"If I could find a way to just change zoning regulations and taxes and make housing cheap for those people, I would do it. Like, who wouldn't? It would be so easy. But I've spent decades looking around trying to understand housing, and in the last four years looking for examples around the world, and I just can't find them. I'm sorry. So we have to do it the hard way," says Murray.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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China's economy remains mired in a post-Covid hangover like much of the rest of the world, but the technology, catering and tourism sectors are encouraging, according to David Mahon.
Mahon, the Beijing-based Managing Director of Mahon China Investment Management, spoke to interest.co.nz in the latest episode of our Of Interest podcast.
The relative weakness of the Chinese economy, compared to its rapid expansion of recent decades, amid ongoing concerns about the property market and deflation, has been making international headlines. Mahon says some of what's going on isn't dissimilar to elsewhere in the world.
"We're going through a period of the post-Covid hangover that the whole world is still going through. We talk about China in isolation. Look at global consumption, look at New Zealand growth rates. They're not great. This is normal. The pandemic was huge. Even the Second World War didn't touch every human being on the planet with the same hand of fear, with the same uncertainty. So I think we need to be patient with ourselves, we need to be patient with the global economy and therefore a little bit with the Chinese economy," Mahon said.
"The isolation, the closure of China for three years had a huge impact. And there are losses and there are contradictions in the system that have been highlighted that really are a challenge to the Government."
Nonetheless he suggests the technology sector is a good engine for the Chinese economy.
"And also given the fact that China is being isolated on technology, there is a strategic reason why China will push that further. So I can see some strong engines. The other one is catering and tourism. Catering is very good for New Zealand because it means that Fonterra will be selling its products to the food services sector," said Mahon.
I also asked Mahon about New Zealand's new government flirting with joining AUKUS, the Australia-United States-United Kingdom security partnership, and what sort of impact this could have on NZ's relationship with China including our trade relationship. This issue gathered momentum after Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins met with their Australian counterparts in early February.
"If New Zealand were to join AUKUS in any form, whether it was phase one or two, it would have an impact, definitely, and it would be a major sign of a change in [NZ] policy of perhaps two generations. So I think we have to wait to see what [Prime Minister] Christopher Luxon says rather than what Winston Peters and Judith Collins say," said Mahon.
In the podcast Mahon talks further about the NZ-China relationship, the China-US relationship, the Chinese economy, tensions over Taiwan, the Xinjiang region and the Uyghurs, President Xi Jinping's power, Chinese consumers, the middle class, the potential for more monetary and/or fiscal stimulus in China and more.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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The coalition government's select committee banking inquiry could look at how to encourage banks to lend more to "productive" sectors of the economy rather than having such a big focus on "unproductive" housing lending, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says.
The National-NZ First coalition agreement says the government will establish a select committee inquiry into banking competition "with broad and deep criteria to focus on competitiveness, customer services, and profitability."
Speaking in interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Bayly said the government will wait to see what the Commerce Commission has to say in its market study into personal banking services before launching the select committee probe. The Commission's draft report is due on March 21.
"Why have we seen outflows from the productive sector like small businesses, farming and property development which is really important if you want to build houses in New Zealand? We've seen funding going out of that sector, going into what I would term the unproductive sector which is the mortgage market. That's interesting because it obviously has a big impact on businesses and the productive sector," said Bayly.
"Then there are things around margin [and] capital adequacy ratios that the Reserve Bank manages. That will help banks determine where they put their money, and whether they want to invest in more mortgages, or whether they want to invest in supporting businesses."
"I'm approaching it with an open mind. I want to see where they [the Commerce Commission] have got to with retail [banking], but I think inevitably there's some other areas we want to cover," said Bayly.
Under bank regulatory capital rules overseen by the Reserve Bank, banks are required to hold less capital against housing lending than against other types of lending such as business/corporate and agriculture lending. The major lending exposure of all NZ's major banks is housing. ANZ NZ, the country's biggest bank, has 72% of its total lending in housing.
Bayly is also Minister of Statistics, plus Small Business and Manufacturing Minister.
On Statistics NZ, Bayly said it will deliver the 7.5% annual spending reduction the government has asked for. Decisions and preparation are ahead for the 2028 census, he said, noting the 2023 census cost $326 million, "a lot of money."
"I'm wanting to make sure that what we do drives economic growth for New Zealand, how we can power up those businesses. That's the big strategic intent," he said.
"Do you run another huge census every five years? That's the first question. And if you read the Stats NZ] briefing [to the incoming minister] there's a proposal that you don't run those big things again. Because governments all around the world are having the same issue where if you front up to someone now and say 'can you fill out this long form' most of them tell you to naf off," Bayly said.
The next census could look to make more use of administrative data like home addresses or tax returns, he said, information and data that lies within various government entities.
"Obviously they've got to do it within privacy settings. But that is certainly the trend overseas and we will have to look at it.. that you may move towards more localised, small surveys, targeted surveys, and look to buttress that information using existing data sources that are potentially untapped at the moment."
In the podcast Bayly also talks about Stats NZ reporting Consumers Price Index (CPI) data monthly, funding to update the CPI that's overdue, the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act, the conduct of financial institutions (CoFI) regime, buy now, pay later, anti-money laundering rules, and his plans to rewrite the Companies Act.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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New Zealand should be working towards a 100-year planning horizon when it comes to infrastructure, and viewing planning as "an exercise in dynamism and inquisition" rather than a "bureaucratic exercise."
That's the view of Geoff Cooper, General Manager of Strategy at the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission.
Speaking in interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Cooper argues planning gets a bad rap.
"It's seen as a bureaucratic exercise and it should be seen as an exercise in dynamism and inquisition. I think we need to see more of this planning expertise coming into government, and planning happening from a much earlier period of time, front footing the needs rather than waiting for them to be in front of us," Cooper says.
"Getting ahead of the planning cycle is a really obvious place to start. And start identifying options before we get into solutions because the moment a project is announced you've created interests. The moment you announce a project all of a sudden there's interested parties. And once there are interested parties, whatever the project is, it's very difficult to do optioneering, almost impossible."
"So what we would say here is think slow, act fast. Go through a slow, rigorous planning process, identify your problem definition first ... then once you've got a preferred solution which you've stress tested, then you get on with it and do it as fast as you can," says Cooper.
In terms of the sort of timeframes we should be thinking about for infrastructure planning in New Zealand, Cooper says there's no firm answer.
"But certainly I would be thinking [a] 100-year [time]frame personally."
In the podcast Cooper also talks about the five key drivers of infrastructure demand, NZ's infrastructure deficit, how our infrastructure needs are changing, project selection and delivery, why big projects always seem to cost more and take longer than expected, funding, financing, contestable infrastructure priorities, plus the resilience and sustainability of infrastructure.
"What we're dealing with here is uncertainty and risk. As we're building our new infrastructure what we're seeing are the risks associated with climate change, and the level of resilience that we need, is far higher than what we thought. In fact a lot of our infrastructure is simply not designed for the level of resilience that we need today. And it's going to take decades to get it there as you've seen with things like the earthquake strengthening. The difficult thing with resilience, of course, is out of sight out of mind. It's very difficult to get the acceptance that we need to invest in something that you may or may not need in the future. So it becomes a very difficult thing to sell," Cooper says.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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Although the war on inflation is being won, there are still battles to come and it's too soon to expect Reserve Bank interest rate cuts, says Kiwibank Chief Economist Jarrod Kerr.
Speaking to interest.co.nz for the first 2024 episode of our Of Interest podcast, Kerr says the cost of living crisis is improving for households and businesses.
"We are winning the war on inflation but there are a few battles ahead and a few wins that we need over this year. We think inflation will fall to 3% quite quickly, but the move from 3% to 2% might be a bit awkward later this year and into next year," says Kerr.
On Wednesday Statistics New Zealand's latest Consumers Price Index (CPI) showed annual inflation down to 4.7% in the December quarter from 5.6% in the September quarter. Hot on the heels of the latest inflation data, Reserve Bank Chief Economist and Monetary Policy Committee member Paul Conway is due to give a speech next Tuesday. This will include comments on NZ data released since the central bank's last Monetary Policy Statement in November.
These will be the first public comments from a senior Reserve Bank figure this year.
"I think we have to have an acknowledgement [from Conway] that the overly hawkish commentary from November is no longer. When you look at what they told us in November, they basically told us they've got no tolerance for upside surprises. We've had nothing but downside surprises since that statement... The GDP report came out much weaker than what the central bank [expected]," Kerr says.
"They gave us a clear indication that if everything goes wrong to the upside that they will hike [the Official Cash Rate] again, and they gave us a 60% probability that they would hike again. I think that was wrong at the time and it has been proven wrong now. And I think Paul may hint that suggestions of another hike in this cycle have evaporated. But equally talk of rate cuts, I think they'll be coming out and say that's premature, that's a conversation for later in the year."
A key area of concern remaining for the Reserve Bank will be non-tradeable inflation, relating to inflation from domestic goods and services. This came in at an annual rate of 5.9% in the December quarter versus the Reserve Bank's 5.7% forecast. Kerr notes much of this is coming from housing related costs such as rents, helped higher by record net migration levels, insurance, and construction costs. In reality the Reserve Bank doesn't have a great deal of influence in the areas of insurance, rates and rents, Kerr says.
In the podcast he also talks about the next OCR review on February 28, whether the Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Remit to; "achieve and maintain future annual inflation between 1% and 3% over the medium-term, with a focus on keeping future inflation near the 2% mid-point," may need to change in an era of climate change and other challenges, when he expects the Reserve Bank to cut the OCR, the US interest rate outlook, the outlook for the NZ dollar, the inflationary threat from Middle East conflict, and concerns about China.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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Following COP28's call for a transition away from fossil fuels, a key test will be how quickly a rethink of the market capitalisation of oil and gas companies starts emerging, says Rod Oram.
Fresh from attending COP28 in Dubai, Newsroom journalist Oram spoke to interest.co.nz for the latest episode of our Of Interest podcast.
COP28, or the 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was overseen by its president Sultan Ahmed al-Jabar, managing director of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC, the United Arab Emirates' state owned oil company.
Fossil fuels did, however, make it into the final agreement in a substantial way for the first time at a COP, Oram says. Whilst it's "weaker and slower and less specific [language] than is actually required," it's still significant progress.
The "UAE Consensus" text agreed by 198 countries also includes a global renewables and energy efficiency pledge.
"That does start to send a signal. Not only to governments as they prepare their next commitments under the Paris Agreement, by 2025 countries have to come back with an improved commitment, but it sends a powerful signal to them that they must be working more on fossil fuel reductions in consumption and production, and it also starts to send a stronger message to financial markets," says Oram.
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change.
"I think the key test in financial markets, both of that language on fossil fuels but then [also] on this language of a big increase in renewables, is how quickly we start to see a reappraisal of the market cap of oil and gas companies. And how quickly we'll see an appraisal that says 'oh, maybe they aren't going to be producing as much as we thought, say over the next 10 years, because people won't be burning as much because governments have started to shift, consumers have started to shift, renewables are escalating at a rapid pace.' And that to me is going to be the acid test as how soon we start to see that revaluation in the stock market of oil and gas companies," Oram says.
In terms of the annual COP meetings, Oram points out they require consensus across all 198 countries so it's not the place for really big breakthroughs. Instead COP, once a year, provides "a really good scorecard about what the state of play is on all of these issues."
"This isn't anymore just about negotiations between government officials and politicians. This is very much an all-of-society meeting, and that's why the numbers [of delegates attending] were so big this year."
In the podcast Oram also talks about the New Zealand presence at COP28, NZ winning fossil of the day, the first official recognition of and finance mechanism for helping developing countries cope with economic losses and physical damage from storms, droughts, and other climate impacts, the first time there has been a COP declaration on agriculture, and the "deeply, deeply, deeply fascinating" experience of attending a COP in person. Oram also addresses criticism of people flying across the world to discuss climate change, and his hopes for COP29 next year in Azerbaijan.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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By Gareth Vaughan
The first-half of 2024 is likely to be tough with rising unemployment and more businesses failing as the economy "bounces along the bottom," says BNZ Head of Research Stephen Toplis.
In a new episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Toplis delves into the swathe of domestic economic data from the past week including Gross Domestic Product, migration, Statistics New Zealand's Selected Price Indexes, the Real Estate Institute's latest monthly housing data, the current account deficit, the dovish US Federal Reserve monetary policy review, China and more.
It's tough times for businesses and households are under the cosh, Toplis says.
"Our view has long been that the second-half of 2023 and first-half of 2024 would be the trough in the economic cycle. And I think this [recent data] is confirming evidence of it," says Toplis.
"We're just bouncing along the bottom. And we'll continue to bounce along the bottom, probably until the central bank starts lowering interest rates. So there's more of this really, probably until the second-half of next year."
He notes the economy would look even worse without surging migration, but this is becoming problematic.
"We knew prior to Covid that we were having difficulty as an economy absorbing more than about 50,000 or 60,000 people in a given year. Now we're trying to absorb double that, and that's resulting in things like pressure on your rents, pressure on your housing market, and a pick up in demand in some places that will be difficult to meet," Toplis says.
Thus it's time to "look very closely at tweaking the [migration] settings to moderate those inflows."
Meanwhile, with the new coalition government planning to reduce government consumption aggressively, the reduction in the size of government "is going to be a headwind to New Zealand for some time to come."
"There are quite strong multiplier effects of that because government consumption is largely people employed. So if you reduce the size of the state sector, particularly its employment, it will have multiplier impacts on spending throughout the economy."
"If you think about the last time we had a massive correction in the size of government, that was actually in the early 1990s when Ruth Richardson ran her mother of all budgets as she called it. The sort of decline in government consumption that we're talking about now is of a similar magnitude. Back then it had a very, very big impact on both the unemployment rate and economic activity generally. The broader environment was quite different so it would be remiss to suggest it would be exactly the same impact, but it will be meaningful," Toplis says.
In the podcast he also talks about the inflation outlook, including why we "need to be a little bit careful in being overly concerned about non-tradeables" inflation, the housing market, the labour market, the outlook for interest rates, and more. (See more on tradeable versus non-tradeable inflation here).
"Volatility remains the order of the day unfortunately, and we still have the worst of this economic recovery to get through."
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr says he's "extremely confident" the world is heading back to a period of low inflation, saying the central bank is prepared to do "whatever it takes" to achieve its mandate of low and stable inflation.
Speaking in in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Orr talks about the reaction from financial markets to last week's Reserve Bank monetary policy review, what its Monetary Policy Committee members will be watching between now and when they next review monetary policy on February 28, and what the Reserve Bank would need to see to be more relaxed about inflation.
"We just need to repeat we are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve our mandate, [of] low and stable inflation. If we get further inflation shocks there may be more work to do. So we're in a holding position, but we've made it clear where our nerves sit," Orr says.
"Basically we need to see more spare capacity in the economy to have the real confidence that the inflation pressures are coming off. All the indicators are moving in the right direction, but there's a lot of news still to arrive on the table."
He also talks about "historically significant" immigration, noting countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, with strong net inward migration are "having the highest core inflation challenges."
With the new National-led government set to remove the Reserve Bank's requirement to "support maximum sustainable employment," from its monetary policy remit, Orr discusses how different monetary policy might have been over recent years if that hadn't been part of the Reserve Bank's mandate.
Orr also says profit-led inflation, businesses pushing through price increases under cover of news about a major shock to the economy because there'll be less pushback from customers at such times, has been happening in NZ as it has overseas.
"We just used to call that inflation expectations and generalised inflation," Orr says.
"Whenever you've got high inflation people can hide price rises even though it's not something specific to their good or service. They can get away with high or variable inflation, they can start shifting relative prices around, and then that leads to more generalised inflation as input costs rise and wage costs rise and so on."
"And it's that scramble and mess that causes long-term inflation problems. And so I would say all of those things have been happening in New Zealand as they have been everywhere else," Orr says.
"This is the challenge for monetary policy, we have to lean against that desire to tuck a little price increase in behind generalised inflation hoping no one notices. Consumers have to be laser-like focused and think 'is that right, should I be shopping somewhere else?'," Orr adds.
In the podcast Orr also discusses the degree to which Official Cash Rate (OCR) rises are responsible for reducing inflation, inequities involved with monetary policy, whether price controls could be used to help fight inflation, whether the Reserve Bank's monetary policy should be required to support sustainable house prices, what he expects to see from the Commerce Commission's market study into retail banking competition, the level where he'd consider the OCR to be neutral in that it's neither stimulating nor constraining economic activity, his ideal scenario for monetary policy a year from now, and how he's "fully convinced" the world is heading back to low and stable inflation but there may be higher interest rates on average to achieve that.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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On the 22nd of November, while the National Party was putting the finishing touches on its coalition agreement, the European Union (EU) ratified a new trade deal with New Zealand.
It was the latest in a long line of agreements NZ has struck since 1983, but it could be the last.
Speaking in in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, John Ballingall, a partner at economic consultancy firm Sense Partners, says NZ may have reached âpeak FTAâ as there arenât any likely or worthwhile deals on offer.
This jars with the newly-elected National-led governmentâs promise to âwork relentlesslyâ to smooth NZâs trade links and open up new markets for exporters.
Todd McClay, a senior and long-serving National MP, was sworn in as the Trade Minister on Monday and will be tasked with doubling the value of exports in the next 10 years.
Achieving that goal would require an annual growth rate of 7.2%, compared to an historical average over the past decade of roughly 4%.
The past two years have seen much higher rates of growth but only because various exports have bounced back from very low levels during the era of pandemic restrictions.
National says it'll chase the goal by working to win a trade deal with India and the Gulf Cooperation Council, while also reducing ânon-tariff barriersâ to make trade cheaper.
Ballingall says the incoming government needs to put the most resources into that last element.
A paper he published in October provocatively suggests NZ should âgently say noâ to any country looking to start an FTA negotiation, unless it will be clean and fast.
The exceptions to this rule would be India, the United States, and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, but none of these are likely to be achieved in the next 10 years.
If any of these deals were to become possible in the future, they would likely be much less lucrative than the China agreement which transformed the NZ economy. This is partly because of the economic and political situation in those countries, but also because the FTA agreement with Europe did not include dairy and meat.
Ballinghall says the EU deal was âgenuinely world leadingâ in some areas, but it doesnât offer as much market access for our farming sector as NZ would like.
âOnce you've told the rest of the world that you're prepared to take the deal that's on offer, not your ideal outcome, then that becomes the precedent, almost a starting point for your next set of negotiations,â he says.
In a press release prior to the election, McClay said the rewards of securing a free trade agreement were large. Two-way trade with China has increased seven-fold since 2008.
Labour had âdropped the ballâ on the India trade relationship, he said, but a National government would make it a âpriorityâ.
Ballingall worries that chasing a trade deal with India would use up too many resources that could be put to better use elsewhere. For example, Australia has been negotiating since 2011.
His report recommends focusing on regional trade agreements that include multiple trading partners and attacking less tangible barriers that create costs for exporters.
Sense Partners estimates the cost of non-tariff measures, such as bureaucratic border regulations, on NZ exporters at about $12 billion. Thatâs 10 times higher than the cost from the few remaining tariffs.
âThe time is ripe for a new trade strategy,â Ballingall says.
One that focuses more on reducing transaction costs and getting the most out of existing trade deals, rather than focusing on new market access with ever diminishing returns.
While that may be a less charismatic message to deliver to the voting public, it does appear McClay and the incoming government are aware of the need to shift focus.
âOver the next decade, National will measure the success of our trade policy in the value of exports, not simply by how many new trade agreements we sign,â McClay says, in that same press release.
The new government has promised a record number of trade missions and a trip to India in the first year, but some in the trade sector will be hoping it also focuses on the less cinematic work of smoothing existing trade links.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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Although trading in foreign exchange markets is inherently very risky, the Reserve Bank (RBNZ) boosting its capacity to do so makes sense both from monetary policy and financial stability perspectives, Westpac New Zealand Chief Economist Kelly Eckhold says.
Speaking in in the latest episode of interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast, Eckhold whoformerly worked as the RBNZ's manager of foreign reserves and at the International Monetary Fund, says the RBNZ's foreign currency intervention capacity is likely to increase significantly over the next two or three years from the NZ$17.725 billion as of its latest disclosure.
That's even after the RBNZ in July ramped up its foreign currency intervention capacity by almost NZ$4 billion by creating and selling NZ dollars. This followed January's announcement of its new Foreign Reserves Management and Co-ordination Framework (FRCF).
Eckhold points out the RBNZ's total level of foreign reserves hadn't changed substantively since 2008, and the economy's about 80% bigger now and the foreign exchange market has probably doubled in size.
"When you see this rather large and abrupt change in the level of reserves going on here it's a consequence of the fact that the framework hasn't been reviewed for a very long time," Eckhold says.
"We have a well functioning foreign exchange market. The purpose of having the intervention policy for crisis situations is to keep it that way at all times," he says.
From a monetary policy perspective the RBNZ may intervene when the NZ dollar "overshoots or undershoots relative to its justified or fundamental levels." It's a tool available to "lean against some of those really large unjustified deviations in the exchange rate."
"With respect to the crisis intervention role, what it really does is help provide a bit of insurance in the event that some relatively rare but bad situations occur. And one of the good things about insurance is that it makes people probably a little bit more comfortable investing in the country because they feel there's some buffers there that could be used if something bad happens. That probably means all else equal your interest rate's a little bit lower, potentially your exchange rate could be a little bit less volatile, and that's going to be to the benefit of ordinary New Zealanders and firms," says Eckhold.
"For the monetary policy intervention operation to the extent they have some success in helping moderate the cycle, then that would help contribute to reduced instability in output, inflation, [and] the exchange rate itself. And that's also going to be of benefit to everybody over time."
"I calculated the total government foreign exchange reserves at [the equivalent of] about 7% [of] GDP. So we're not talking about something that's going to break the bank here."
In the podcast Eckhold also talks about how and where the RBNZ holds its foreign currency reserves, how much bigger the holding might get, the circumstances under which the RBNZ may intervene, the RBNZ's intervention track record, its hedged and unhedged foreign reserves, and more.
The new FRCF will be reviewed every five years.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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New Zealand should be one of the easiest places in the world to get to net zero greenhouse gas emissions and we should be planning for net negative, the next step after that, says Christina Hood.
Hood, the head of energy and climate policy consultancy Compass Climate, spoke to interest.co.nz in a new episode of our Of Interest podcast. Hood is also the former head of the climate unit at theInternational Energy Agency in Paris.
In the podcast she spoke about the push to net zero by 2050; addressing issues such as what it actually means, what the practicalities of it are, and what it'll mean for the lives and livelihoods of New Zealanders and the economy.
"I think New Zealand is one of the easiest places in the world to get to net zero because of our abundant renewable energy resources, [and] because of the amount of land that could be restored to indigenous forests. A lot of our CO2 [carbon dioxide] emissions since preindustrial times are from land clearance not from fossil fuel use. And we see in TairÄwhiti a lot of land that should never have been cleared, so there's a lot of trees that can go back. We have all of that potential, it's totally doable," Hood says.
"We also have a legal framework in place through our Climate Change Response Act and that sets stepping stones towards 2050 to try and keep governments on track. National has firmly committed to the interim milestones. We have carbon budgets for every five years that step down to meet the net zero target and they've said they're committed to those. And that's actually where things are going to bite because those short term targets hold politicians' feet to the fire in terms of acting now, not just making plans for later."
But, Hood says, when and if we get to net zero we can't rest on our laurels.
"If we do [get there] it's not the end of the story. It's just a particular point that we pass through. Because the science tells us that when we get to that point we would have already emitted too much C02 for the kinds of temperatures that we want to keep our climate systems liveable."
"Even if we get to that net zero we will have emitted too much. The phase after that is actually to be net negative. We're going to have to continue to draw down that excess C02 from the atmosphere through native forest regeneration, but also through technology. And we should be starting to plan for that phase now because it's only a few decades away," says Hood.
In the podcast she explains what net zero means, what the origins of the concept are, the key challenges to getting there, what it means for the agriculture sector, trade and travel, plus feeding the planet, the challenges and targets in big emitters such as the United States, China and India, and also talks about different visions of what net zero means.
"There's a spectrum. [At] one end [there are] extreme techno optimists who say 'new technologies will just replace everything that we currently use and we'll carry on and nobody's going to notice the difference'," Hood says.
"At the other end of the spectrum is an extreme degrowth perspective which says 'technology is just not going to be the answer. What we need to do is to fundamentally reconstruct the way we run society, shrink our energy use until it reaches such a point as we're in balance with nature.' Most climate people, including myself, sit somewhere in the middle."
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After the 2014 election, Peter Dunne got a phone call from Prime Minister John Key to say National wouldnât need the support of United Future to form a Government.
The same call was made to the Act and MÄori parties, which had also signed confidence and supply agreements after the 2011 election.
Key invited all three parties to stay in the tent, if they wanted, but said there wouldnât be any policy concessions or negotiations. They took the deal.
âA bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,â Dunne said, in an interview for interest.co.nz's Of Interest podcast.
âAbout 10 days later, the specials came in and National had lost a couple of seats, and its outright majority, and suddenly realised they had a problemâ.
Key and his team came back to the three parties and asked to renegotiate the newly-signed confidence and supply agreements into a more substantial and specific arrangement.
Dunne, and the others, refused: âI said, no, we've got a signed piece of paper hereâ.
âNational, ended up in the worst of all worlds. It had supply partners they hadn't conceded anything to. All it was getting from us was confidence and supply. Everything else had to be negotiated case by caseâ.
âIf they'd been a little less impatient, and waited till the specials they could have got better dealsâ.
This memory might be a factor in why National and New Zealand First have been holding out for the final vote count. The numbers might shift around in unpredictable ways.
Once the special votes are reported, Dunne thinks a Government could form quite quickly.
He said it was partly Christopher Luxonâs leadership style. But also because Parliament has to sit by mid-December, and the National wonât want that to happen under a caretaker government.
The National leaderâs message, that he would not provide blow-by-blow commentary on the negotiations, was more directed at Winston Peters than at the media.
âI thought he was also sending a pretty clear warning to Act and New Zealand First: don't you either.â
âBecause, if you look at New Zealand First's track record, they like to control negotiations, they like to be the ones that sort of indicate where things are atâ.
It was an âunedifying spectacleâ in 1996 and 2017 when Jim Bolger and Jacinda Ardern found out they would be Prime Minister, only when Peters announced it on live television.
âThe bronze medal winner shouldn't tell the gold and silver medals who they are. I think Luxon is trying to guard against all that sort of thing happening againâ.
Listen to the rest of the interview for more insight into negotiating a coalition.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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New Zealand's supply chains are in "a serious, if not critical condition," requiring holistic systems thinking and a long-term focus, investment and government support to become stronger and more resilient, says self proclaimed supply chain tragic Dave Christie.
Christie, who has worked in supply chain roles for the army, PwC, the Warehouse, Fonterra, Coda Group, Tainui Group Holdings developing the Ruakura Superhub, and Synergic Technologies, spoke to interest.co.nz in the latest episode of our Of Interest podcastabout NZ's supply chain issues and the Ministry of Transport's recently released Aotearoa New Zealand Freight and Supply Chain Strategy. Christie was part ofan industry reference group in the development of this strategy.
He says supply chain problems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic brought "an invisible part of business and society" out into the light, and highlighted to the Government how vulnerable NZ is to global disruptions.
"The concern I have is we feel we've come out of Covid and people are kind of going' the supply chain's resolved.' ... What happened with Covid is the tide went out and we saw these rocks, they were exposed and we started to deal with those, but we dealt with them in what I would say were very unsophisticated ways. Now the tide's rising and everyone's forgotten about the rocks below the water," Christie says.
"if I was a doctor who was diagnosing the New Zealand supply chain as my patient I would have to say the diagnosis is that we are in serious, if not critical condition."
"And perhaps staying with that human analogy and referring it to the supply chain, the heart is the beating production sector of New Zealand. And while that's performing well, I think it's actually unproductive and we've seen this multiple times through the Productivity Commission's reports. So our heart isn't beating as efficiently as it can. The arteries and veins are the networks that flow products and goods around, not just [around] New Zealand but the globe, [and] they are constrained, we've got cholesterol in there and high blood pressure," says Christie.
"We've got parts of our network where the blood doesn't flow correctly, so that's not getting to the extremities well, our nervous system, we're actually deaf, dumb and blind, we don't know where the problems are and where they're coming from so we just get smacked in the face and we're probably suffering from early onset dementia. We don't actually have the cognitive ability to learn from our mistakes and improve, so we continually make the same mistakes."
However, he says all is not lost.
"We know lots of patients who are serious and in a critical condition. [But] if they get the right care they can come out the other end better, stronger and more resilient. And I honestly believe that's potentially the future for us in New Zealand and our supply chain."
Given the investment needed, 30-year timeframes, regulatory settings and 360 degree thinking needed, there's a role for government to play, Christie adds.
In the podcast he also talks about the need to change NZ's port structure, why NZ should have reserve stocks of critical imports, whether NZ should have a national shipping line, the role for coastal shipping and rail, why supply chain improvements really matter to small businesses, the push to decarbonise, and more.
"If we want to make a change we're going to have some tough conversations. We're going to have to change some of the settings," Christie says, adding this should always be for the greater good.
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
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